The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll Page 33

  After Gress had left, Feinhals distinctly heard sounds of a machine-gun duel from the mountains. The hard, hollow rasp of a Russian machine gun contrasting with the high-pitched, nervous barking of a German one that grated like a frenzied hornet—the shots came so fast they seemed to skid. The skirmish was brief; only a few rounds were exchanged; then hand grenades burst, three or four, and again the noise was multiplied. Over and over again, until they died away, they sent their echo down into the plain. Somehow it seemed ridiculous to Feinhals: the war, wherever it showed up, was associated with completely unnecessary noise. This time Mück didn’t come upstairs, he stood on the bridge and stared at the mountains; one more isolated shot came from above, from a rifle apparently, the echo sounding as thin as the noise of a rolling stone; then all was quiet until dusk fell. Feinhals replaced the sheet of metal on the roof and slowly went downstairs.

  Gress was not back yet, and down in the bar Mück was anxiously holding forth about increased alertness for the night. There he stood, his face deadly serious, his fingers fumbling nervously with his two decorations; he had hung his loaded machine pistol around his neck and his steel helmet from his belt.

  Before Gress got back, a gray car arrived from Tesarzy and out of it got a stout, red-faced captain and a spare, stern-looking first lieutenant, both of whom walked across the bridge with Mück. Feinhals stood in front of the house and watched them. It looked as though the three figures had disappeared for good, but they soon came back; the car turned. Across the street Deussen was looking out of the window, and on the ground floor of the workmen’s quarters the men were sitting in the semidarkness around a rough table, tomatoes and potatoes on their plates. In the corner of the room stood the Slovak woman, one hand on hip, in the other a cigarette—the flourish of her arm as she brought the cigarette to her lips seemed to Feinhals a shade too elaborate. Then, as the motor of the gray car started up, she came closer, leaned on the windowsill smoking her cigarette, and smiled at Feinhals. He looked intently at her face, forgetting to salute the two departing officers: the woman was wearing a dark bodice, and the white of her breast shone heartshaped below her brown face. Mück walked past Feinhals on his way into the house and said, “Bring the machine gun over here.” Feinhals now saw that where the officers’ car had been parked, a black, slender machine gun was lying on the road beside some ammunition cases. He slowly crossed the road and brought back the machine gun, then crossed over a second time and brought back the ammunition cases. The Slovak woman was still leaning on the windowsill; she flicked off the glowing end of her cigarette and stuck the rest into her apron pocket. She was still looking at Feinhals but no longer smiling—she looked sad, her mouth was a poignant pale red. Then all at once she pursed her lips a little, turned, and began to clear the table. The workmen came out of the house and walked toward the bridge.

  They were still working on it when Feinhals walked across the bridge half an hour later with the machine gun. They were putting the last beam in place in the dark. Deussen himself screwed in the very last rivet. He had one of the men hold a carbide lamp for him, and to Feinhals it looked as though he were holding the spanner like the handle of a barrel organ, as though he were boring into a great dark box that produced no sound. Feinhals put down the machine gun, said “Just a moment” to Gress, and went back once more. He had heard the motor being started up in the truck standing outside the workmen’s quarters; he walked back to the ramp and watched the rest of the household objects being loaded. There was not much left: a stove, a few chairs, a basket of potatoes, crockery, and the workmen’s own things. The workmen walked back from the bridge and all got into the truck. They were carrying bottles of schnapps and drinking from them. The last person to get in was the Slovak woman. She was wearing a red kerchief around her head and had very little to carry: a bundle wrapped up in a blue cloth. Feinhals hesitated a moment as he watched her get in the truck, then walked quickly back. Deussen was the last to come off the bridge; he was holding the spanner and went slowly into Temann’s house.

  They spent half the night crouching there with the brand-new machine gun behind the little wall that bordered the ramp, listening into the night. The silence was unbroken. Now and again the patrol emerged from the forest; they would exchange a few desultory words and then go on crouching there mutely, their eyes fixed on the narrow road leading into the forest. But nothing came. Up in the mountains the silence was unbroken too. Just before midnight, when they were relieved, they went indoors and fell asleep at once. It was almost morning when they heard a noise and got up. Gress waited to put on his boots, but Feinhals stood barefoot at the window and looked across to the other side: a crowd of people were standing over there, arguing with the lieutenant, who evidently did not want to let them cross the bridge. They had apparently come down from the mountains and from the village whose church spire was visible beyond the forest, a long file of people with carts and bundles that seemed to extend even beyond the point where the forest began. Their shrill voices were full of fear, and Feinhals saw the widow Suchan, in slippers, throw a coat over her shoulders and walk across the bridge. She stopped beside the lieutenant and talked for a long time to the crowd, then started to argue with the lieutenant. Deussen arrived too; he walked slowly across, cigarette between his lips, and also spoke to the lieutenant, then to the landlady, then to the crowd—until at last the file of refugees on the other side started to move in the direction of Szarny. There were many carts piled high with children and crates, chickens in baskets, a long file that could proceed only at a snail’s pace. Deussen returned with the landlady and, shaking his head, tried to explain something to her.

  Feinhals dressed slowly and lay down again on the bed. He tried to sleep, but Gress was fussing about as he shaved and whistling softly to himself, and a few minutes later they heard two vehicles approaching. At first it sounded as though they were driving side by side, then one seemed to overtake the other; one was hardly audible yet as the other drove up to the door. Feinhals got up and went downstairs: it was the brown car that had sometimes brought the captain with the workmen’s pay. He was standing across the street outside Temann’s house, and just then Deussen walked toward the bridge with a man in brown who was also wearing a major’s shoulder loops. But now the second car arrived too. This car was gray and caked with dirt and mud-splashed, and there seemed to be something wrong with it; it drew up in front of the tavern, and a cheery little lieutenant jumped out and called to Feinhals, “Start packing, it’s getting sticky here. Where’s the old man?” Feinhals noticed that the little lieutenant was wearing a sapper’s shoulder patches. He pointed toward the bridge, saying, “Over there.”

  “Thanks,” said the lieutenant. He called to the soldier in the car, “Get everything ready,” and ran quickly toward the bridge. Feinhals followed. The man in the brown uniform with the major’s shoulder loops inspected the bridge minutely, had Deussen show him everything, nodded appreciatively, even shook his head appreciatively, and walked slowly back with Deussen. Deussen emerged at once from Temann’s house with his pack, spanner in hand, and the brown car drove quickly off.

  Mück returned with the two machine gunners, the sapper lieutenant, and an artillery noncom without a weapon, dirty and harassed in appearance: sweat was running down the man’s face, he had no pack either, not even a cap, and kept pointing excitedly into the forest, and beyond the forest up into the mountains. Now Feinhals could hear: vehicles were coming slowly down the road. The little sapper lieutenant ran over to his car shouting, “Hurry, hurry!” The soldier came running up with gray metal boxes, brown cardboard packages, and a bundle of wires. The lieutenant looked at his watch. “Seven,” he said, “we’ve got ten minutes.” He glanced at Mück. “It’s to be blown up at exactly ten past. The counterattack’s been called off.”

  Feinhals slowly mounted the stairs, collected his things in his room, picked up his rifle, placed everything outside the door of the house, and walked back inside. The two women, still not dr
essed, ran distractedly along the passages, snatching random objects from the rooms and screaming at one another. Feinhals looked at the Virgin Mary: the flowers had wilted. He carefully picked out the wilted stalks, rearranged the remaining fresh flowers, and looked at his watch. It was eight minutes past, and across on the other side the sound of the approaching vehicles could be heard more clearly now, they must have already passed the village and be in the forest. Outside, everyone stood ready to leave. Lieutenant Mück had a message pad in his hand and was taking down the particulars of the harassed artillery noncom, who was sitting exhausted on the bench.

  “Schniewind,” said the noncom, “Arthur Schniewind … we’re with 912.” Mück nodded and slipped the message pad into his leather satchel. At that moment the little sapper lieutenant came running back with the soldier, shouting, “Take cover—take cover!” They all threw themselves onto the road, as close as they could to the house, the front of which stood at an angle to the bridge ramp. The sapper lieutenant looked at his watch—then the bridge blew up. There was not much of a crash, nothing whizzed through the air; there was a rending sound, then an explosion like a few hand grenades, and they heard the heavy roadway smacking into the water. They waited another moment or two until the little lieutenant said, “That’s it.” They stood up and looked at the bridge: the concrete piers were still standing, the catwalk and roadway had been neatly blown away, only across on the other side one section of the railing still hung in the air.

  The approaching vehicles sounded quite close by now, then suddenly there was silence: they must have stopped in the forest.

  The little sapper lieutenant had got into his car and, cranking down a window, called out to Mück, “What are you waiting for? You’ve got no orders to wait here.”

  He saluted briefly and drove off in his dirty little car.

  “Fall in!” shouted Lieutenant Mück. They lined up on the road, Mück stood there and looked at the two houses, but in the two houses nothing stirred. All they could hear was a woman weeping, but it sounded like the old woman.

  “Forward march!” shouted Mück, “forward march, march at ease.” He strode ahead, deadly serious and sad—he seemed to be gazing somewhere far away, or back into the past, somewhere.

  IX

  Feinhals was surprised at the size of Finck’s premises. All he had seen from the front was this narrow old building with the sign saying FINCK’S WINESHOP & HOTEL, ESTAB. 1710, some rather dilapidated-looking steps leading into the bar, a window on the left, two on the right of the door, and, next to the farthest window on the right the entrance to the courtyard, which was like every other winegrower’s entrance: a sagging gateway, painted green, just wide enough for a cart to drive through.

  But now, on opening the front door, he found himself looking through the passage into a large, neatly paved courtyard, its four sides formed by sturdy buildings. Around the second floor ran a balcony enclosed by a wooden railing, and through another gateway a second courtyard was visible, with sheds in it, and on the right a single-story building, obviously a reception hall. He took it all in carefully, listened, and paused suddenly at the sight of the two American sentries: they were guarding the second gateway, walking past each other like caged animals who have discovered a certain rhythm that enables them to pass. One was wearing glasses and his lips moved continuously; and the other was smoking a cigarette; they had pushed their steel helmets to the backs of their heads and looked pretty tired.

  Feinhals tried the latch of the left-hand door, onto which someone had stuck a piece of paper marked PRIVATE, then the latch of the righthand door, which bore a sign saying BAR. Both doors were locked. He stood there waiting while he watched the sentries steadily pacing up and down. In the silence there was only the occasional shot to be heard; the opposing sides seemed to be exchanging shells like balls not meant to be taken seriously, just a token that the war was still on; they rose like alarm signals that burst somewhere, exploded, and announced in the silence, “War, this is war. Look out: war!” Their echo was only faintly audible. But after listening for a few minutes to this harmless noise, Feinhals realized he had been mistaken: the shells were coming from the American side only, none from the German side. It was not an exchange of fire, it was a purely one-sided discharge of explosions occurring at regular intervals and producing a multiple, slightly menacing echo on the other side of the little river.

  Feinhals stepped forward, slowly, into the dark corner of the passage, where it led on the left into the cellar and on the right to a little door with a cardboard notice nailed to it saying KITCHEN. He knocked at the kitchen door, heard a faint “Come in, please,” and pressed down the latch. Four faces looked at him, and he was shocked by the resemblance of two of the faces to that lifeless, exhausted face that he had seen, dimly lit by the ruddy reflection from the fire, on that far-off grassy slope outside a Hungarian village. The old man by the window smoking a pipe resembled that face very much; he was thin and old, with a tired wisdom in his eyes. The second face whose resemblance startled him was that of a boy of about six, playing with a toy wagon as he squatted on the floor and raised his eyes to him. The child also was thin, he also looked old, tired, and wise; his dark eyes looked at Feinhals, then the boy lowered his incurious gaze and listlessly pushed the wagon across the floor.

  The two women sat at the table peeling potatoes. One was old, but her healthy face was broad and brown, and it was clear that she had been a handsome woman. The one beside her looked faded and aging, although she was obviously younger than she appeared: she looked tired and dispirited, the movements of her hands were apathetic. Wisps of blond hair fell over her pale forehead, whereas the older woman wore her hair combed tightly back.

  “Good morning,” said Feinhals.

  “Good morning,” they replied.

  Feinhals closed the door behind him and hesitated, he cleared his throat and could feel the sweat breaking out on him, a fine sweat that made his shirt cling to his armpits and back. The younger of the two women sitting at the table looked at him, and he noticed she had the same delicate white hands as the boy, who was squatting on the floor and calmly guiding his wagon around some chipped tiles. In the small room there was a stale smell of innumerable meals. Frying pans and saucepans hung all around the walls.

  The two women glanced at the man by the window who was looking out into the courtyard. He pointed to a chair, saying, “Please sit down.”

  Feinhals sat down beside the older woman and said, “My name’s Feinhals—I’m from Weidesheim—I’m trying to get home.”

  Both the women looked up, the old man showed more interest. “Feinhals,” he said, “from Weidesheim. Jacob Feinhals’s son?”

  “Yes. How are things in Weidesheim?”

  The old man shrugged his shoulders, puffed out a cloud of smoke, and said, “Not too bad—they’re waiting for the Americans to occupy the place, but they haven’t done so yet. They’ve been here for three weeks, but they won’t go the mile and a half to Weidesheim. The Germans aren’t there either, it’s a no-man’s-land, nobody’s interested in it, the location’s not good …”

  “You can hear the Germans firing into it sometimes,” the young woman said, “but not very often.”

  “That’s right, you can hear them,” said the old man; he looked keenly at Feinhals. “Where have you come from now?”

  “From the other side—I waited over there for three weeks, for the Americans to come.”

  “Directly across from here?”

  “No—farther south—near Grinzheim.”

  “Grinzheim, eh? That’s where you crossed over?”

  “Yes, last night.”

  “And changed into civilian clothes?”

  Feinhals shook his head. “No,” he said, “I was wearing civilians over there—they’re discharging a good many soldiers now.”

  The old man laughed softly and looked at the young woman. “D’you hear that, Trude,” he said, “they’re discharging a good many soldiers now. Oh
, what can one do but laugh …”